Glucocrticoids accelerate protein breakdown. One of the mechanisms that accelerates protein breakdown is induction of resistance to insulin's action on proteolysis. Branched-chain amino acids also promote anabolism by suppressing proteolysis. This protocol will examine whether glucocorticoids also antagonize the action of BCAA on proteolysis and if the ATP-ubiquitin-proteosome system is activated in human muscle. An abstract describing preliminary results of these studies was presented at the 1997 meeting of the American Diabetes Association. Those studies demonstrated that glucocorticords blunt the anabolic effect of branch chain amino acids in skeletal muscle and in the whole body. Current analyses are underway to examine the effect of glucocorticords on induction of ubiquitin and proteasome message expression in skeletal muscle.